House-numbering Plan Being Pushed In Haycock Twp.

Two weeks ago, a couple who live in a remote part of rural Haycock Township were held at gunpoint by two men who ransacked their home and stole a lot of money.

Six weeks before that, the husband suffered a heart attack, and rather than risk having emergency vehicles lose their way to the outlying location, his wife took him to the hospital.

The secluded nature of the homes in Haycock along with the recent terrifying events prompted the couple to spearhead another attempt in the municipality to establish a street numbering system to facilitate better response times to emergencies in the township.

The couple, who requested their names be withheld, turned out at last night's supervisors meeting with about a dozen neighbors to investigate the steps needed to institute a system whereby homes can be readily identified by emergency personnel in the event of an emergency.

Hodge Laughlin, project manager for the Bucks County Communications Center in Doylestown, said the county commissioners urged municipalities without a street and house numbering system to institute them for their own protection.

The county keeps a computerized list of every thoroughfare by block, Laughlin said in urging that adoption of any system is better than no system at all. He said, however, it would be preferable to form a number pattern that is logical, consistent throughout the municipality, and for the sake of simplicity, one that coincides with a postal numbering system.

Supervisor Chairman Nat Ostroff said that while it is advantageous to have a single numbering system in the township, an attempt several years ago to establish one jointly with the post office failed. The failure was due primarily to the post office's budgetary constraints, he said.

Ostroff said also that it would take longer to implement a system with the postal service, according to the township's prior experience. But he indicated a willingness to work with them again if it became the wish of residents that the course was preferable to establishing separate numbering systems.

Two things of prime importance to help emergency vehicles such as police, fire and ambulance squads, Laughlin said, is to make sure everyone in the municipality takes part and that the numbers posted on homes or mailboxes are visible and reflect light at night.

The cost of buying and installing the numbers, he said, would be "less than a carton of cigarettes."

He stressed also the importance of knowing the nearest intersection to a home.